Narendra Modi meets Rajnath Singh, discusses 2014 Lok Sabha polls

Modi said after the fruitful meeting that he and Singh had discussed the next general elections in detail.

NEW DELHI: Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on Sunday visited BJP president Rajnath Singh in Delhi, a meeting that is being seen as a possible precursor to a move by the party to offer a central role to the chief minister who scored a hat-trick in the recent assembly elections.

Modi, who has reaffirmed his position as the party's biggest vote-catcher, said after the fruitful meeting that he and Singh had discussed the next general elections in detail.

"We discussed how BJP can serve the nation further. Yes, we also discussed 2014, we discussed it at great length," said Modi, who also shared pictures and videos of the meeting on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

Singh also told the media that they had they had discussed Gujarat and the 2014 elections during the couple of hours they met at his residence. The two leaders met ahead of the meeting next month of BJP's national council, which is expected to take a final call on Modi's new role.

In an earlier tweet, before leaving for Delhi, Modi said, "will meet Shri Rajnath Singhji & congratulate him on his taking over as BJP president." He told the media after the meeting, "I came to congratulate Rajnath Singh. I sought his guidance on what we can do in future in Gujarat."

Though both leaders exuded warmth at the meeting, a senior party leader said Modi and Singh had drifted apart, after Singh was in 2005 elected party president.

Earlier, Modi was instrumental in the party's choice of Singh as Uttar Pradesh chief minister after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had dispatched Modi to Uttar Pradesh in 2000, to handle a major political crisis while Ram Prakash Gupta was chief minister.

Modi's supporters believe Singh, who is close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and remained BJP president until 2009, had a role in keeping Modi out of the party's parliamentary board while he was party chief.

Singh was unanimously elected BJP president last Wednesday, replacing Nitin Gadkari at the last moment. Gadkari, the RSS' primary choice for the post, had to step down following income-tax department raids at about nine locations in Mumbai belonging to alleged shell companies related to his Purti group.

Singh, the RSS' next best preference, then emerged the unopposed candidate for the post. However, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was not part of the decision to choose Singh as president, senior leaders said.

After Bhagwat came under attack within RSS for his insistence on Gadkari's re-election, he opted to stay out of the discussions. Other RSS leaders, such as Suresh Soni (who was against a second term for Gadkari), Bhaiyaji Joshi and Dattatreya Hosbole, pushed for Singh.

The leaders also dismissed reports that appeared in a section of the media that party veteran LK Advani had successfully opposed Gadkari's renomination even earlier, calling it 'laughable' and a "figment of imagination".

ET had reported earlier that RSS was deeply miffed with Advani for not being able to rise to the occasion as an effective mediator ahead of Singh's election and for his 'frivolous' suggestions on who should be the party president.